1000 People Dead After Intense 6.1 Magnitude Earthquake Wreaks Havoc in Afghanistan

Images depict mudslides and destroyed mud-brick dwellings in eastern Paktika governorate, where paramedics are rushing to diagnose the victims of the accident.

6.1 Magnitude Earthquake Leaves 255 People Dead

Aircrafts have been transporting patients to health care facilities in isolated places. In the official interview made, Taliban chief Hibatullah Akhundzada claimed that, apartment buildings have been demolished, and the number of fatalities is expected to grow

Furthermore, the Afghan rescue agency remarked that the 6.1-magnitude earthquake slammed south-east Afghanistan, resulting in the deaths over 1000 civilians and injured over 1,500 further.

Mawlawi Sharafuddin Muslim, the minister in charge for emergency preparedness, indicated at a press event that the number of fatalities was expected to grow.

The earthquake hit soon Wednesday morning local time, with its origin in Khost, some 95 miles south of Kabul, according to the US Geological Survey.

Previously, Abdul Wahid Rayan, the chief official of the Bakthar media organization, stated that the places affected by the tremor were in hilly locations, implying that relief efforts have been conducted using aircrafts, The Guardian reported.

However, Rayan appended and state that Afghanistan has a scarcity of aircraft and these locations proving troublesome to reach is rendering rescue operations stressful. Rayan reported that 90 residences in Gayan, a region of Paktika governorate, had been damaged.

As per a citizen who posted on the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre's internet site, powerful and lengthy jerking movements were reported in Kabul (EMSC). Images in Afghan newspapers as well as on media platforms displayed buildings in ruins.

According to ABC News, Mohammad Nassim Haqqani, the chairman of the Afghanistan National Disaster Management Authority, casualties have reportedly been recorded in the eastern districts of Khost as well as Nangarhar.

Municipal administration bureaucrats, according to Bakhtar, are concerned that the number of deaths may climb if the national congress does not give immediate assistance.

Moreover, in a post online, a guy gestures to the residences surrounding him in a footage uploaded on online networks by the media organization and claimed that there are five people trapped beneath one residence; six people behind another household, and about 13 human remains under a property property.

"A major tremor hit four counties of Paktika region, slaughtering and wounding thousands of our compatriots and damaging hundreds of buildings," said Bilal Karimi, a deputy spokesperson for the Taliban leadership. We encourage various assistance organizations to deploy personnel to the region as soon as possible to avert additional disaster." 

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Afghanistan Suffers from Earthquake Damage

The tremor had an intensity of 6.1, according to the Pakistan Bureau of meteorology. Tremors were reported in Islamabad and other cities in Pakistan's Punjab region.

Primary care doctor in charge in the incident also told reporters that the majority of the fatalities have occurred in the Gayan and Barmal regions of Paktika. According to the local media portal Etilaat-e Roz, an entire hamlet in Gayan was devastated.

Seismic waves were reported over a 500-kilometer radius in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. Residents testified experiencing the tremor in Kabul, Afghanistan, along with Islamabad, Pakistan.

As per BBC Urdu, there were neither initial report of casualties, and the event inflicted minimal devastation in Pakistan.

Afghanistan is seismically active due to its location in a geologically active zone, which includes the Chaman line, the Hari Rud fault, the Central Badakhshan fault, and the Darvaz line.

More than 7,000 deaths have occurred in earthquakes in the nation in the last ten years, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Earthquakes kill an estimated 560 people per year.

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